Sky TV has picked up the rights to popular shows Homeland, The Americans and American Horror Story which disappeared overnight in November when TV3 and Four lost the distribution rights.

The shows will return in 2014, but fans will have to subscribe to Sky and its premium drama channel, Soho, to see them.

The pay-television network has secured a content package deal with 20th Century Fox Television which also includes ratings hits Modern Family and Bones and a new supernatural drama, Sleepy Hollow.

These shows will screen on Sky's free-to-air channel, Prime.

Sky's director of programming, Travis Dunbar, said the deal would end viewers' uncertainty on how to catch up with the Fox Studios shows, some of which were cut midway through their series on TV3 and Four, when parent company MediaWorks lost the contract.

MediaWorks lost all television shows made by Fox Studios in November after losing the rights to Australian soap Home and Away in July

MediaWorks went into receivership in August, owing $700 million during negotiations with the US content producer.

Deals with NBC Universal, Sony and CBS were signed, but Fox and MediaWorks butted heads over another contract requiring MediaWorks to take a full suite of shows. MediaWorks wanted to choose individual shows.

Sky said scheduling information for the newly acquired shows would be released later.